Exercise 2: Reading an image

The image is of two children exploring a cave one holds a torch up high illuminating the interior of the cave and making the ceiling glow red, inside a dragon sits guarding his treasure horde. The dragon is sleeping and the children are fearful, one cowering behind the other, the braver of the two is pointing to the path ahead, the other back to the way they came. weapons are piled on the ground, a dragon would have no use for these, they are likely trophies from adventurous treasure seekers that have perished before them.

The main focal points are very warm in contrast to the cool blue cave, the dragon is curled around a green throne, this is complimenting the red of the dragon’s body and allows us to quickly pick out his shape of his body and curve of his tail from the warm yellows and oranges of the treasure that surrounds him. The children’s faces are glowing from the torch, the surrounding blue area at the bottom and arc of warm red above their faces draw you right in this is balanced by the large scale use of red from the dragon, leading your eye from the top left to the bottom right.

The use of green as a complementary colour to the red can be seen in 4 places, I think this area is intended to act as a secondary focal or resting point.

The boys can be seen one wearing green, this stands out over the cold blue but not as much as the warm reds.

The dragon is the main focal point the warm reds jump off the image.

This is where the eye starts to lead through the picture, it’s the warmest area but doesn’t have a subject.

The green of the chair helps to define the shape of the dragon’s body.

The arrows follow the path diagonally across the image.

Once our eye lands on the dragon, the four green areas act as one to create an additional focus.